Rival Rails: The Race to Build America's Greatest Transcontinental Railroad
Language: English
Published by Random House, 2010
- Hardcover
- Used
Condition: Used - Good
£ 31.18
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[ No Hassle 30 Day Returns ][ Ships Daily ] [ Underlining/Highlighting: NONE ] [ Writing: NONE ] [ Edition: First ] Publisher: Random House Pub Date: 9/28/2010 Binding: Hardcover Pages: 432 First edition.
Seller Inventory # 6883217
- Title
- Rival Rails: The Race to Build America's Greatest Transcontinental Railroad
- Author
- Walter R. Borneman
- Publisher
- Random House
- Publication year
- 2010
- Condition
- Good
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 1400065615
- ISBN 13
- 9781400065615
After the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869, the rest of the country was up for grabs, and the race was on. The prize: a better, shorter, less snowy route through the corridors of the American Southwest, linking Los Angeles to Chicago. In Rival Rails, Borneman lays out in compelling detail the sectional rivalries, contested routes, political posturing, and ambitious business dealings that unfolded as an increasing number of lines pushed their way across the country.
Borneman brings to life the legendary business geniuses and so-called robber barons who made millions and fought the elementsand one anotherto move America, including William Jackson Palmer, whose leadership of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad relied on innovative narrow gauge trains that could climb steeper grades and take tighter curves; Collis P. Huntington of the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific lines, a magnate insatiably obsessed with trainsand who was not above bribing congressmen to satisfy his passion; Edward Payson Ripley, visionary president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, whose fiscal conservatism and smarts brought the industry back from the brink; and Jay Gould, ultrasecretive, strong-armer and one-man powerhouse.
In addition, Borneman captures the herculean efforts required to construct these roadsthe laborers who did the back-breaking work, boring tunnels through mountains and throwing bridges across unruly rivers, the brakemen who ran atop moving cars, the tracklayers crushed and killed by runaway trains. From backroom deals in Washington, D.C., to armed robberies of trains in the wild deserts, from glorified cattle cars to streamliners and Super Chiefs, all the great incidents and innovations of a mighty American era are re-created with unprecedented power in Rival Rails.
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Walter R. Borneman is the author of several books, including 1812: The War that Forged a Nation, the French and Indian War: Deciding the Fate of North America, and Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America, for which he won the Tennessee History Book Award and Colorado Book Award for Biography. He is the president of the Walter V. and Idun Y. Berry Foundation, which funds postdoctoral fellowships in children's health at Stanford University.
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
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